Winners of the 2018 iPhone Photography Awards Announced

NEW YORK – July 18, 2018 – The iPhone Photography Awards (IPPAWARDS) is proud to announce the winners of the 11th Annual Awards. This year’s winners were selected from thousands of entries submitted by iPhone photographers from over 140 countries around the world.

The Grand Prize Winner Photographer of the Year Award goes to Jashim Salam of Bangladesh for his entry Displaced. First, Second and Third Place Photographers of the Year Awards go to Alexandre Weber of Switzerland for his image Baiana in Yellow and Blue, Huapeng Zhao of China for his entry of Eye to Eye and Zarni Myo Win of Myanmar for his image I Want to Play.

The founder of IPPAWARDS Kenan Aktulun, says about the 11th Annual photos “iPhone users have become very fluent in visual storytelling. This year’s photos were technically impressive and many of them were very personal.”

The PrizesThe Grand Prize Winner Photographer of the Year Award winner receives an iPad Pro. The First, Second and Third Place Photographer of the Year Award winners will each receive an Apple Watch Sport. The first place winner in each category will be awarded a Gold Bar and the Second and Third place winners will each get a Palladium or Platinum Bar from the most recognizable private gold mint in the world.

ABOUT IPHONE PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS
iPhone Photography Awards (IPPAWARDS) is the first and longest running iPhone photography competition. Founded in 2007, IPPAWARDS has been celebrating the creativity of iPhone photographers since the iPhone first began to inspire, excite and engage users worldwide. Every year since then, IPPAWARDS has selected the very best shots among thousands of images submitted by iPhone photographers from more than 130 countries around the world. Winners are selected by esteemed jury members in a multi-step process and The Photographers of the Year are then awarded.

Winners of the 2017 iPhone Photography Awards Announced

NEW YORK – June 26, 2017 – The iPhone Photography Awards (IPPAWARDS) is proud to announce the winners of the 10th Annual Awards. This year’s winners were selected from thousands of entries submitted by iPhone photographers from over 140 countries around the world.

The Grand Prize Winner Photographer of the Year Award goes to Sebastian Tomada of New York City, USA for his entry Children of Qayyarah. First, Second and Third Place Photographers of the Year Awards go to Brendan O Se of Cork, Ireland for his image Dock Worker, Yeow-Kwang Yeo of Singapore for his entry of The Performer and Kuanglong Zhang of Shenzhen, China for his image The City Palace.

First, Second and Third place winners in our 2017 special category The America I Know, hosted in conjunction with The Aspen Institute are Juan Carlos Castañeda of New York, USA for his photo of The Water Protectors at Standing Rock, North Dakota in December 2016, Davis Bell of California, USA for his photo of Bison at Antelope Island and Maria K. Pianu of Pordenone, Italy for her photo of Coney Island. You can see a selection of the 2017 IPPAWARDS winning images at this year’s Festival, curated by IPPAWARDS and the Aspen Institute.

The 1st, 2nd and 3rd places in 19 categories were awarded to photographers who represented countries around the world including Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Ecuador, France, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Myanmar, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States.

This year was the IPPAWARDS 10th anniversary. Creator Kenan Aktulun says, “We are amazed to see how IPPAWARDS has grown from a small circle of people and friends of friends into a truly global audience with thousands of participants. In this time of political upheaval we feel very thankful to host such a truly diverse group of people and their view of the world.”

The PrizesThe Grand Prize Winner Photographer of the Year Award winner receives an iPad Pro. The First, Second and Third Place Photographer of the Year Award winners will each receive an Apple Watch Sport. The first place winner in each category will be awarded a Gold Bar and the Second and Third place winners will each get a Palladium or Platinum Bar from the most recognizable private gold mint in the world.
In recognition for winning the first and second place images in the special category The America I Know, Juan Carlos Casteñeda and Davis Bell have been given an all-expenses paid trip to the 2017 Aspen Ideas Festival.
ABOUT IPHONE PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS
iPhone Photography Awards (IPPAWARDS) is the first and longest running iPhone photography competition. Founded in 2007, IPPAWARDS has been celebrating the creativity of iPhone photographers since the iPhone first began to inspire, excite and engage users worldwide. Every year since then, IPPAWARDS has selected the very best shots among thousands of images submitted by iPhone photographers from more than 130 countries around the world. Winners are selected by esteemed jury members in a multi-step process and The Photographers of the Year are then awarded.

New York – November 23, 2016 – The iPhone Photography Awards (IPPAWARDS) announced a new category “The America I Know” for the 2017 Annual Competition.

In collaboration with The Aspen Institute, we’re very happy to announce a new category: The America I Know.

As America grapples with its self-identity, we want to see your understanding of this vast and varied land. Whether you’ve lived in America your whole life or you’ve only seen it in the movies, your unique perspective is requested. Are we healing or hurting, rising or falling, together or divided? What is the America you know, right now?

Open to participants worldwide. Two selected winners will receive a trip to the thirteenth annual Aspen Ideas Festival at the Aspen Institute’s campus in Aspen, Colorado from June 22-July 1, 2017. Three nights of lodging in Aspen and a festival pass will also be included. The 2017 winning entries for all categories will be exhibited during the festival.

ABOUT IPHONE PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS
iPhone Photography Awards (IPPAWARDS) is the first and longest running iPhone photography competition. Founded in 2007, IPPAWARDS has been celebrating the creativity of iPhone photographers since the iPhone first began to inspire, excite and engage users worldwide. Every year since then, IPPAWARDS has selected the very best shots among thousands of images submitted by iPhone photographers from more than 139+ countries around the world. Winners are selected by esteemed jury members in a multi-step process and The Photographers of the Year are then awarded.

The Aspen Ideas Festival is the nation’s premier, public gathering place for leaders from around the globe and across many disciplines to engage in deep and inquisitive discussion of the ideas and issues that both shape our lives and challenge our times.

]]>TIME – These Are the Best iPhone Photos of 2016https://www.ippawards.com/time-these-are-the-best-iphone-photos-of-2016/
Thu, 07 Jul 2016 20:53:33 +0000http://www.ippawards.com/?p=45514

“IPPAwards pay tribute to the stunning imagery that can be captured with even the smallest of cameras, reminding us that the person behind the lens plays a significant part in the making of a picture.”

The winners of the ninth annual iPhone Photography Awards—an international photography contest that fosters iPhone and mobile photography—have been announced, with Siyuan Niu of Xinjiang, China, coming on top.

He is followed by First Place winner Patryk Kuleta of Warsaw, Poland, and by Californian Robin Robertis and Floridan Carolyn Mara Borlenghi in the second and third spots.

“I couldn’t believe I got the prize,” Niu tells TIME. “If I had to describe the feeling, I could only say that it feels like when Andy from The Shawshank Redemption finally reached out the sewers and hug the freedom in the lightstorm; it’s like when Jack won the ticket to the Titanic; or when young Simba was born and lifted by the shaman baboon, Rafiki.”
Selected from thousands of entries submitted by iPhone photographers from 139 countries around the world, the top four winners are joined by dozens more who received First, Second and Third prizes in 19 different categories — from travel to animals to portraits. “It’s amazing to see what people capture and how connected they are to those moments, no matter what country in the world they are in,” says the awards’ founder Kenan Aktulun. “It feels like a warm invitation from someone sharing a slice of their life experience.”

Niu won the Grand Prize for his image of a 70-year-old Khalkha with his golden eagle in the Tianshan Mountains in the south of Xinjiang, China. Titled Man and the Eagle, the image captures a tough man with a weather-beaten face who shares a tender companionship with his wild, trained bird.

Based in the Xinjiang Province, Niu was photographing the snowy landscape when the man came towards him on horse with the eagle on his right arm. “The eagle must have noticed me as it started flapping its wings and screeching, very agitated and vigilant,” Niu tells TIME. “The old man used his hand and his voice to calm it down. They were touching face-to-face. With my iPhone in hand, I took the shot.”

Decidedly moving beyond his systematic training in digital cameras, Niu says he’s since grown into the habit of shooting with his iPhone 5s, which he uses to show the multivariate beauties of his home country, highlighting the harmony between humans and nature. “Photography today could never have been more simple,” he says. “My iPhone is always with me anytime in my pocket. With just one touch, I can immediately record a moment in front of me. I can come up with the footage even when I didn’t look at the screen or settings.”

Niu shot with no other lenses or gadgets, and post-processed on Snapseed after applying a VSCO filter.

Second Prize went to graphic designer Kuleta for his Modern Cathedrals, an impressionistic look at a longstanding architectural structure. But the image carries with it as much mystery as its amorphous aesthetic suggests. “I really don’t know what this image actually is,” Kuleta tells TIME. “I just know to my surprise that I won First Place.”

Kuleta, who was always more into nature and minimalistic long exposure landscape photography, recently started experimenting with architectural photography. He took to the streets of Poland and France with his iPhone 5, interested in merging long exposure photography with an impressionistic aesthetic. “I simply fell in love with the painterly effect that came out of it,” he says. “There is something grandiose and surreal about architecture itself, surreal because probably I will never understand how people are able to create these buildings, skyscrapers, how they even build them.”

His images are created using long exposure apps like AvgCamPro and AvgNiteCam, and then editing in Snapseed and VSCO for final touches.

Painter-turned-photographer Robertis from Carlsbad, Calif., was awarded Third Place for She Bends with the Wind. The image, an iPhone 6 shot of a woman swaying like an extension of the long Cape Cod grass around her with a red umbrella, falls in line with Robertis’ love of the fanciful. “My work attempts to capture images that invoke magical places found only in the subconscious of those who dare to peek behind the curtain of day-to-day life,” she says. The image was edited in Snapseed and Photoshop Express.

With Wonderland, a quirky father-and-son candid, Florida based photographer Borlenghi won Third Place. A conceptual photographer living and working in Miami, Borlenghi took this image as part of a series for #WHPwonderland, a weekend project organized by Instagram one weekend before Christmas 2015. “I went on a little adventure with my five-year-old son to the beach at Crandon Park on Key Biscayne with reindeer masks,” Borlenghi says. “It was mid-December, windy and colder than we expected. There was not a soul on the beach, and I am pretty sure the people we walked by on the way there thought we were crazy, but we kept on going.”

The image, shot on the iPhone 6s on a tripod, with the Apple Watch as a shutter, is one of many Borlenghi has shot for her Instagram account in the spirit of practice makes perfect. “I go for it whenever possible, even when it doesn’t work,” she says. “It’s always worth the try.”

With a pending announcement in September, the three winners look forward to Apple’s next iPhone model: Niu hopes it will offer exposure control. Robertis would prefer a dual-lens option and potential features that would come with that—like stereo 3D, post-shooting focusing, auto-object masking, etc. “It will be an amazing push for the entire photographic industry, not just for mobile,” he says.

Founded the same year the iPhone was launched, in 2007, the IPPAwards pay tribute to the stunning imagery that can be captured with even the smallest of cameras, reminding us that the person behind the lens plays a significant part in the making of a picture.

“Having an iPhone means anyone can take a picture, but taking a picture doesn’t make a person a photographer, Borlenghi says. Niu agrees. “The iPhone is like a pen in our hands. Good or bad, the pen itself will never write poems, but the poets will.”

Winners of the 2016 iPhone Photography Awards Announced

NEW YORK – July 7, 2016 – The iPhone Photography Awards (IPPAWARDS) is proud to announce the winners of the 9th Annual Awards. This year’s winners were selected from thousands of entries submitted by iPhone photographers from 139 countries around the world.

The Grand Prize Winner Photographer of the Year Award goes to Siyuan Niu of China for his entry The Man and the Eagle. First, Second and Third Place Photographers of the Year Awards go to Patryk Kuleta of Poland for his image from his series the Modern Cathedrals, Robin Robertis of the United States for her entry titled She Bends with the Wind and Carolyn Mara Borlenghi of the United States from her series Wonderland.

The 1st, 2nd and 3rd places in 19 categories were awarded to photographers who represented countries around the world including Australia, Brazil, China, Chile, France, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States.

“This year’s entries contained thousand’s of excellent submissions, presenting quite a challenge for our judges” said IPPAWARDS creator Kenan Aktulun. “It is truly amazing to have so many people from around the world share their experiences, the beauty they see and their personal moments with us.”

The PrizesThe Grand Prize Winner Photographer of the Year Award winner receives an iPad Pro. The First, Second and Third Place Photographer of the Year Award winners will each receive an Apple Watch Sport. The first place winner in each category will be awarded a Gold Bar and the Second and Third place winners will each get a Palladium Bar from the most recognizable private gold mint in the world.

ABOUT IPHONE PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS
iPhone Photography Awards (IPPAWARDS) is the first and longest running iPhone photography competition. Founded in 2007, IPPAWARDS has been celebrating the creativity of iPhone photographers since the iPhone first began to inspire, excite and engage users worldwide. Every year since then, IPPAWARDS has selected the very best shots among thousands of images submitted by iPhone photographers from more than 130 countries around the world. Winners are selected by esteemed jury members in a multi-step process and The Photographers of the Year are then awarded.

The winners of the iPhone Photography Awards have been announced — won by stunning images all taken from the phone’s tiny camera.

The photographer of the year award went to Michael Korelewski of Poland. Second place was taken by British David Craik and Yvonne Lu from the US won third place.

Two of the top three winners were professional photographers, and many of the thousands of entries — which came from 120 countries in all — were submitted by pros. The iPhone, already the most popular camera on photography site Flickr, is being increasingly alongside other phone cameras by professionals.

Craik, the British runner up, is a professional wildlife photographer, and his winning image shows a bird mid-flight. His photo was taken after starlings came to snatch breadcrumbs from his table at a coastal café.

In all, 57 photographers won first, second or third prizes in the 19 different categories. They came from various countries including Australia, Egypt, Israel, Kuwait, and Portugal.

The three photographer of the year winners won an Apple Watch Sport. The winners of each of the categories won a gold bar.

The iPhone Photography Awards were founded in 2007, the year the phone was launched, and was the first iPhone photography competition.

Submissions for the 2016 competition are already open. Picture must have been taken on an iPhone, iPad or iPod, and can be edited using only apps on iOS.

Apple has been promoting the use of the iPhone as a camera, most recently in a range of ads featuring still and video images as part of a “Shot on iPhone” campaign. Brendan O Se, who came third place in the People category of the awards, has been featured as part of that high-profile campaign.

An accordionist playing traditional Polish songs in a market square in Warsaw. “His face was the first thing I noticed,” photographer Michał Koralewski said, “so expressive and beautiful in its own way. It was like an open book. You could almost read his life story from the wrinkles.”MICHAŁ KORALEWSKI/IPPA

Dozens of amateurs and professionals became award-winning photographers this week for images they snapped on their iPhones, iPods or iPads. The eighth annual iPhone Photography Awards named three photographers of the year—Michał Koralewski of Poland in first place, David Craik of the U.K. in second and Yvonne Lu of the U.S. in third—and three winners in each of 19 categories, such as portraiture, travel, animals, seasons and food.

“This year’s entries were especially impressive, ranging from intimate, thought-provoking moments to stunning, captivating imagery,” IPPAWARDS creator Kenan Aktulun said in a press release sent to Newsweek. The winners “once again showed the ability of the iPhone to take astonishing photographs.”

José Luis, an architect living in Valencia, Spain, won first place in the “Others” category for this image. JOSÉ LUIS SAEZ MARTINEZ/IPPA

Aktulun, a designer, photographer and creative director, founded the competition soon after the first-generation iPhone came out, he told Newsweek after this year’s results were announced. He began taking photos with the phone as a hobby and quickly realized that though the early technology didn’t necessarily make for the most technically strong images, the phones allowed people to capture meaningful moments spontaneously.

“I shoot mostly street scenes and portraits, trying to capture intimate moments, the kind that carry a lot of emotions,” said Dina Alfasi of Tel Aviv, whose photo won third place in the portrait category this year. “Love, pain, fear, joy—no matter what emotion, as long as whoever looks at the picture will truly feel something.”

Aktulun declined to disclose the precise number of submissions to the competition, but said that they were in the thousands this year and that the number of photos entered roughly doubled from a year ago. Submissions came from more than 120 countries this year, including the U.S., the U.K., Australia, China, South Africa, Egypt, Kuwait, Germany, Taiwan and Ecuador. Many of those who participate are photographers and other creatives by profession, but the competition also draws hobbyists—a neuroscientist, an aerospace engineer, a pediatrician and an insurance company employee—who have been drawn to photography outside of work.

A photo captured at the Chicago Air and Water Show by Jesse Alkire, a freelance writer and art director, won first place in the “News/Events” category. JESSE ALKIRE/IPPA

“Every year I look at the photos submitted, and they’re getting more personal,” Aktulun said. “People are more comfortable with it,” with smartphones becoming more ubiquitous throughout the world. Not only has the technology improved since the iPhone was first released in 2007, but “the quality of images in terms of composition frame and kind of lighting of subject, or the pictures they’re taking is much, much better.

“People are less focused on using a lot of filters” and more on what it is they’re trying to capture, Aktulun said.

The panel of unidentified judges generally includes professional photographers, creative directors, publishers and media buyers. This year’s group of 12 judges also included a design professor and two architects.

Chris Belcina, a nurse from Cooper City, Florida, whose photo of Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado took first place in the landscape category, said iPhone photography “has taught me to find my own style and helped me think creatively, turning ordinary moments into magical ones, capturing details that we often take for granted.”

There’s an international competition for iPhone photography, and these incredible images won

A new book out this month by the photographer Harvey Wang studies the profound ways that digital cameras changed photography. No offense to Harvey, but he may be a bit behind: A new wave of pro photographers have picked up their iPhones — and dropped their cameras entirely.

That, at least, can be inferred from the eighth annual iPhone Photography Awards, whose 2015 winners were announced today. The informal global contest has always attracted a swarm of amateur shutterbugs, but this year, some pros also got in on the game.

Two of the top three winners are pro photographers; of the thousands of people who entered, from more than 120 countries, a larger share than usual were professionals.

“The quality of the entries are getting increasingly better,” said Kenan Aktulun, the contest’s founder. “[I’m] not sure if iPhone users are getting better or more professional photographers are adapting iPhone. Probably both.”

In the past year, iPhone editing apps have certainly begun adapting to the needs of pro photographers, despite the historical friction between photogs and their phones. VSCO Cam, the newly trendy, four-year-old editing app, signed on dozens of pro designers, photographers and other creatives this year, earning itself a coveted New York Times Style profile. Snapseed, a sophisticated editing tool from Google, underwent a major, long-awaited update in April: With it, the company promised “the precision and control of professional photo editing software on your phone or tablet.”

Even Instagram, the photo-sharing platform of the filter-happy masses, added a range of advanced editing tools last June, all intended to lure in serious photographers. The approach seems to have worked: Instagram’s most popular non-celebrity account belongs to National Geographic — with a whopping 22.1 million followers.

If you think your personal Instagram game can compete, the IPP Awards are already accepting submissions for 2016: Your photo must be taken on an iPad, iPod or iPhone and can be edited in an iPhone app — but it can’t undergo any desktop processing. In the meantime, check out some of the winners below. All of the winning images and honorable mentions are also available on IPPA’s Web site.